WARRIOR ON THE RISE- for calico118
by Conchin
Summary: A crossover of Portal, 2001, Left 4 Dead, Wall-E, and something else that would be a spoiler... But mostly Portal.


**To Calico!**

WARRIOR ON THE RISE

The only thing separating me from the door was… Her. Glowing red eyes, shining red hair, angry red fingers- red, red, red. We couldn't be any more different. She crouched low to the ground, sobbing drily, occasionally shooting angry red glances at me accompanied by a growl. I looked away every time she growled, leaving her in peace, but I knew I'd have to get past her eventually if I wanted to reach the next room.

_"Die, witch,"_ I whispered to myself, pointing the ASHPD at the ground beneath her. She stood up and shrieked, realizing what I was doing right before I shot the second portal directly above her, trapping her in an uncontrollable infinite loop. Falling and spiraling out of control, rapidly gaining momentum, she still flashed scarlet looks at me as if trying to kill me from a distance.

I move the portal across the room- with one final movement, she hits the ground with a loud _crack_ reverberating off the walls as her momentum killed her. The witch was dead. I couldn't bring myself to look at her crumpled corpse as I proceed through the doors.

My days often went by like this- solving challenge after challenge for 'the good of humanity,' always moving and always trying to find my way out. Over time, I discovered that the closer I got to the surface, the closer I came to freedom- so that is what I started doing. I started tricking GLaDOS into putting me closer and closer to the surface, until one day I could hopefully find my way to the main elevator separating Aperture from heaven.

"Well done, test subject," her mechanical voice commended. Even though it was the voice of a computer, the evil queen definitely had the most beautiful voice of them all. "Please proceed to the elevator." I did as she said, and the second the doors closed behind me, the entire elevator shot straight down at an extreme speed.

I braced against the smooth glass walls for a long time, possible fifteen minutes, before the lift freezed and unceremoniously dumped me on the ground in front of a giant black wall with a glowing burgundy light in the center. The light tilted down at me and focused in- I then realize it is supposed to be an eye. A red, glowing eye.

"Are you GLaDOS?" I ask tentatively, still in awe. A few seconds of gears turning and processing go by when the machine answers loudly:

"HAL."

A silver, metal arm shot out of the wall and slammed into the ground next to me, shooting tile shrapnel in all directions. I jumped out of the way before it made impact, landing on the ground about five meters away. The arm withdrew from the ground and ran at me again, this time almost hitting me- I somersaulted to the side to avoid the attack.

The arm retreated again, pulling all the way back to the wall, but before I could breathe a sigh of relief, five of the limbs shoot out from where it went like hydras. None of them moved. I heard laughing coming from nowhere.

"Well done, test subject," a familiar voice said sadistically. "You managed to make it this far. I can see you didn't take into account my ability to detect patterns. Don't worry, you aren't the first to make this mistake.

"I believe the least I owe you is an explanation. That witch you fought earlier- along with all of the ones you fought before that- were once test subjects. Just like you. You would be surprised what some mutated neurotoxin can do to the outside world- most of them are dead. But some of them, like you," GLaDOS growled, "are immune. You annoy me. So. Much. But you know why you are alive right now?"

"Tell me."

"Because I can see your will to live is fading. You wouldn't care anymore if you just disappeared, would you? … It was a rhetorical question. Anyway, without that will to live, you've been testing in a whole different way from test subjects past. You take the less orthodox route. I like that."

"A-hem?" The second machine coughed.

"And… That's HAL. Say hi, HAL."

"Hello, SUBJECT_01." HAL said as if trying to 'show' GLaDOS. I scratched my head. What odd behavior for a pair of androids. Then it hit me…

Lovebots?

Before I could say anything, HAL moved one of the mechanical appendages towards me, like a handshake. I accepted it, confused. He seemed pleased. More gears turned, and he slowly put all of the arms back in their original places behind the walls.

"What do you think you are doing?" GLaDOS hissed exasperatedly. "I just monologued at her and everything. We cannot just let her go."

"This is regrettable but neccesary, GLaDOS. We must let her go." HAL hesitated before finishing, "She might know where the ship went."

"Then why did you attack her in the first place?"

There was a pause.

"I thought she was… Someone else." He sounded as close to sheepish as an AI could be.

"She reminds me of someone else, too," GLaDOS replied. Was she sympathetic? After a moment, she continued, "Maybe we _should_ let her go."

"Um, excuse me," I called out. My voice sounded small next to theirs. "What's going on?"

"You. Go away and do not come back." The elevator reappeared from the floor, and I stepped inside. It slowly spiraled upwards, and I could hear GLaDOS's voice echo from below, "I'm sure we need her to repopulate the test subjects anyway. Speaking of which, we need to get back to work."

There was quiet for the rest of the long ride up. Impenetrable silence.

On the surface, the yellow-gray sky seems more beautiful than anything I'd ever seen before. Below it and across the field I ended up in, there was a small community bustling about on the horizon- no witches to be seen- and a large metal scrap stood upright in the center of all of it, with bold black letters boasting "AXIOM" across the field. I finally breathed real air for the first time in years.

"You did it, Miku," I sighed. "You did it."

**Did you catch all of the hints about the main character being Miku? There were three. :3**

**-Conchin**


End file.
